Big Ben gives brutally honest take on Tom Brady’s ugly Week 6 loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Sunday’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers was supposed to be one of those “get right” games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The Steelers entered Week 6 with a 1-3 record, a banged up defense and a bit of a mess at quarterback.
It was a tremendous opportunity for the Buccaneers offense, and particularly quarterback Tom Brady, to turn things around and make some meaningful progress.
But that’s not what happened. Not even close, actually.
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Brady and the Bucs offense didn’t score a touchdown until late in the fourth quarter as Tampa Bay lost 20-18 in Pittsburgh to fall to 3-3 on the season.
Former Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger didn’t like what he saw from Brady on Sunday. During the latest episode of his podcast, titled “Footbahlin with Ben Roethlisberger”, Big Ben gave a brutally honest assessment of Brady’s performance and body language.
“I was up there just happy as can be watching the game. This is just my opinion, Tom is the greatest. The Super Bowl rings show it,” Roethlisberger said. “It didn’t look like he wanted to be out there. Maybe it was the pressure, and he was getting hit and whatever was going on. At one point I looked down there and said, there’s no way he’s enjoying this. No way. I was enjoying being up there watching the game. It just didn’t look fun for him.”
The Steelers defense did a good job pressuring Brady throughout the game. This group tallied two sacks and five QB hits, resulting in Brady screaming at his offensive line near the end of the first half.
“When a defense gets after you, sometimes your anger and your disgust for things happen because the other team is affecting you,” Roethlisberger said. “Not because it’s you. But yeah, it just looked like a different Tom.”
Brady doesn’t look like himself at all. He had 17 touchdown passes through six games last season. He has eight in six games this year. The Bucs have been impacted by injuries on offense, most notably at wide receiver and the offensive line. Brady’s personal life also has been in the news quite a bit in recent weeks.
There’s plenty of time to turn around their season, but it’s hard to label Brady and the Buccaneers as a legit Super Bowl contender right now given how they’ve played so far.